Originally Posted By: Goriom
Originally Posted By: Owain
It sounds as if Wikileaks made good on it's threat to release information, but the paper never printed it.

Corruption runs deep in the former Soviet Union.


so than why wouldn't wikileaks turn around and release it themselves?

Assange has an agenda and he uses wikileaks to accomplish his goals. Let's not for a second think hes benevolent. If hes the arbiter of free info, why did he have an issue with the release of the Panama Papers?


I guess the question then is, does it matter?

I'm certainly willing to entertain the idea that he has a bias, especially against the US Establishment, and Hillary Clinton in particular, seeing the lengths to which he and Wikileask were targeted. After all, what he as a publisher of information reaped from the US, and Hillary in particular as SoS, was attempts at extradition and USGov pressuring the financial sector to cut ties.

So if someone wants to make a case that Wikileaks has become bias against the US, I find that believable. Or if someone alleged that they had to cut deals with certain polities as a matter of survival.

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The question I posit though, is what does it matter?

Since when in the US, did we as a people, and especially the media, take a position that it should be criminal to publish true, in-context information, simply because we don't like person publishing it or their motives?

Who is benevolent? No one is. US media and govt surely aren't. But so what?

People need to take a long hard look in the mirror, and ask what is more important: That the public get truthful , in-context reporting - or that information reported suits your own personal political opinions.

I have yet to see someone articulate a a case against Assange, or the Podesta leaks, that is more intellectually robust than "I don't like the person who did it, who it helped, or why they did it."

It would be great to find one, but I don't think there is one. Paradoxically, if you attack people for releasing information because you don't like the source, you aren't any better than the authoritarian regimes doing the alleged releasing. Is acting like Putin the best repose to Putin trying to influence politics? I fail to see how those who advocate such a tihng are any better than Putin.

Last edited by Derid; 01/25/17 12:57 PM.
For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)